In what is increasingly shaping up to be a showdown of epic proportions, the brand new chair of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee, Ron Paul, whose sole purpose in life for the past 20 years has been putting the Federal Reserve out to pasture, and returning to the gold standard, will soon spar with none other, than his, and every middle-class American's nemesis, the Chairman. And it could soon get even messier. In an interview with Fortune magazine's Nin-Hai Tseng, not only does the Texas doctor make it all too clear that he once again has presidential ambitions, but when asked whether he wants to end the Fed, gives the following brilliant reply: "Well, I don't expect to. The Fed's going to end itself when they destroy the system. So yes I would end the Fed but I would do it gradually and have a transition." Good luck Ron. However, there will be no gradual transition. If anything, it will be protracted, very much involuntary, and quite likely violent, as it would mark the end of a century-long scheme to transfer countless ounces (no pun intended) of tangible wealth to the ruling oligarchy in exchange for worthless and infinitely dilutable linen.

Will you run for president in 2012? “Sure, there's always a chance. Probably depends on my mood come next January or February. I have not made up my mind. I have a lot of people supporters who are very anxious for me to do it. Right now I'm totally undecided.”

Do you want to end the Fed? “Well, I don't expect to. The Fed's going to end itself when they destroy the system. So yes I would end the Fed but I would do it gradually and have a transition.”

But some would consider ending the Fed is a bit extreme, don't you think? “No, I think printing money is extreme and crazy. I think the obscenity is allowing the Federal Reserve to print $3.3 trillion and we don't even know where it went. That to me is what's so extreme. And that's what the American people are waking up to. Government is extremely out of control. That is what I think everybody agrees on in the Tea Party movement.”

Do you really think America could adopt the gold standard? How can this practically happen? “Look at how many people have money in exchange-traded funds for gold. Billions and billions of dollars. I've always considered myself being on the gold standard.”

More from Fortune:

The erstwhile presidential candidate and soon to be head of Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve talks gold, jobs and the presidency with Fortune.

If there's anything to be said about U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, he
sure is persistent. And lately, that inner flame that's helped him gain
the reputation for sometimes being the "G.O.P. loner" appears to be
paying off.

The soft-spoken obstetrician has represented the 14th
District of Texas on and off since 1977, spending much of his political
career arguing that the Federal Reserve is evil for America and far too
secretive. He doesn't see why there's so much faith in paper money,
including the U.S. dollar. If Paul had it his way, there'd be a return
to the gold standard. He even laid out his case in his book, End the Fed.

What's more, Paul is a big believer in Austrian economic thought –
the idea that government has no role in regulating the economy. And for
years, he's supported keeping Congress from any action not explicitly
authorized in the Constitution, or that he sees as wasteful spending,
including – as a recent New York Times article highlighted – on issues as ceremonial as honoring Mother Teresa with the Congressional Gold Medal.

No doubt Paul's views fall outside the mainstream. At times, his
thoughts are arguably off-putting and easy to brush off as extremist
political rhetoric. Even Libertarians don't always see eye-to-eye with
the Texas politico.

Lately though Paul's views are garnering the attention that he and
supporters have long been waiting for. Earlier this month, Paul was
picked to head the House subcommittee on domestic monetary policy. That
means he will help oversee the body he's opposed to -- the Federal
Reserve -- as well as currency and the dollar's value.

If anything, it appears the timing somehow worked out for beliefs
that Paul has held for decades. The congressman's backing has grown
considerably with the rise of the Tea Party, whose frustrations with
government bailouts of big banks and corporations following the
financial crisis seem to fall in line with Paul's views.

I caught up with Paul this week to talk about his new role, the Fed,
how the world could possibly return to the gold standard and the 2012
presidential election. The following is a lightly edited transcript of
our talk.

What are the Federal Reserve's shortcomings?

They're doing a job that's impossible to do. So it's not a single
person's fault. It's not just former Chairman Alan Greenspan or just
current Chairman Ben Bernanke. It's the assumption that anybody knows
what interest rates should be, or the assumption that they know what
money supply should be, or the assumption that they can have stable
prices or the assumption that they could deal with unemployment.

Do you think we're better off without a Central Bank?

Sure, it's better off that we don't have depressions and inflations
and financial chaos and the problems that we face. We of course wouldn't
have this backdoor financing of big government fighting wars overseas
and getting people to depend on the welfare state. None of that can
happen without a Federal Reserve.

What do you think of the Fed's latest move to start pumping
$600 billion into the economy in hopes to boost the recovery through
huge purchases of long-term bonds?

I think it's terrible. They got us into trouble because there was too
much quantitative easing. I mean it was a continuous inflation and
artificially low interest rates that Bernanke gave us – he gave us all
the bubbles so you can't solve all the problems of quantitative easing
with more of it. So we had one, we're on number two. But actually we had
it under Bernanke. They didn't call it that but it was essentially the
same thing – massive monetary inflation with interest rates way lower
than the market.

So what do you think the economy would look like without the Fed?

We'd probably have a much healthier economy – it wouldn't be so
fragile. Nobody would be worrying about currency exchange rates and
people wouldn't be in and out of currencies and spending all their
energy doing what they're doing. Also, we wouldn't have a situation
where the Fed creates money and hands it out for free and let's the
banks make billions of dollars. And the poor people who are retired and
have CDs get nothing and because of the downturn in the cycle, which the
Fed creates, people lose their jobs and lose their houses. You wouldn't
have any of that.

This was all very clearly predicted by Austrian economic theory and
it's come about and it's very disturbing to the Fed because they're
going to have to recognize that their theories are completely wrong and
they're not about to do that gracefully.

As chairman of the House subcommittee on domestic monetary
policy, which among other things oversees the Federal Reserve, you've
mentioned you will renew your push for a full audit of the Fed. What do
you hope this will do?

It would tell us who the beneficiaries are. They've released
recently some information but they really didn't tell us exactly about
everything and where the money has gone and what kind of collateral they
have. The people in this country deserve to know who are the
beneficiaries and their budget and what they hand out is bigger than the
Congress, which is pretty amazing. They're off budget. They're not
responsible to anybody.

sounds to me like he endorses, perhaps not every twist and turn (possible sellout to israel), but the general idea of releasing embarrassing confidential u.s. info to undercut the war on terrorism/endless war/american empire that much of wikileaks' work does. he calls them, and whistleblowers generally (references earlier people, possibly ellsberg) heroes.

If you can not show some intelligent respectful reply to each other, why on earth would you think any of us would want to read your other words? This gutter crap is what underminds any reply by anyone.

taking matters in his own hands? not like chairing a congressional subcommittee to oppose the errors of the fed before running for president? what? like assassinating the supreme court and dynamiting the eccles building after having slipped the isotope to obama, biden, nancy, john and the cabinet? that kind of direct action? sounds like troll to me.

The solution cannot be political. Therefore Ron Paul is part of the problem.

I used to work with an agronomist that had been heavily involved in politics and higly experienced. He became like a personal coach and taught me most of what I know. His words always stressed how changing things could not be achieved through political means.

Right now what's going on with USA is a spiritual judgement. The country has exported war and exploitation worldwide and it's payback time. The people of the USA will be oppressed and enslaved for the deeds of their country.

Dr. Paul is a teacher and statesman. He is not a politician. Even still; As long as we continue to believe that somebody else, especially somebody elected by the collective, will solve our problems, we get what we deserve, and deserve what we get.

The gold standard is a non sequitor. The same people who run the FED also own most of the gold and the means of production of it. Ron Paul know this. I know I am going to hate myself for saying this and perhaps I have never said it before, but, imho, we need a couple of years of anarchy while we do the TCB thing. (taking care of business)

Even if they have a lot of gold it still puts a cap on the wealth transfer. Means that they would have to kick up gold to buy assets, and their gold is limited. What we have now is them kicking up dollars for assets, and dollars are nearly unlimited.

Also will point out Paul supports competing currencies so people would be free to choose. IF one wanted to support some wacky fiat system that would be their choice.

As to what will happen it will be a nightmare police state or total breakdown into a civil war. There is no fixing the current system. Paul can't fix anything because the system is broken. But what he can do is draw attention to the crimes, and maybe they won't get pulled again.

Agreed. There is no fix for the system. It is over. We have flown too close to the sun for too long.

I think everyone should listen very closely to this man and what he has to say.

Never mind the priestly garb, pay extremely close attention to what is being said. This is what Ron Paul is up against. This is what many people up there, that perhaps want to do the right thing, are up against.

marla certainly has a soft spot for the zionist entity but it does explain a lot of u.s. policy both seen and unseen.

by the way, the guy with the crosses, beard and serious teeth makes some good, perhaps a bit overstated, points. for instance senate judiciary and foreign relations (first i found) are chaired (for a few moments more) by those irish names he (toothy) seems to long for, leahy and kerry. but what the heck, pelosi and cheney aren't jews but israel/likud has many weaker defenders who are. even israel has many jewish citizens who oppose its policies. ironically israel's msm presents the controversy in far fuller detail than does the u.s. msm

many jews in public life are zionists. a good number are not (naomi klein, glenn greenwald). many christians in public life are zionists (bush, obama). some are not (ron paul). ditto for non believers and, probably, muslims, etc. associating zionism with jewishness (like toothy does) is, imo, counterproductive because it is imprecise and racist (or religionist, whatever). they ain't all bad and we ain't all good.

Open your eyes. There is something very wrong with the situation. And for a supposed minority group they hold many important positions within our government, which generously gives to the most controversial state in the world.

Helen Thomas got blasted by the ADL for being an anti-semite merely for IDENTIFYING those in control.

It is INARGUABLE looking at the executive in the major studios, film and television, as well that of the major newspapers that they are run by jews.

The Federal Reserve Board at the top of the banking system is nearly unanimously jews.

So, Helen Thomas stated the truth...was THAT her sin? No. It was in IDENTIFYING the ethnicity of those who have the control. Even identifying this clan who incidentally behave like a clan, have their own clan religion, interlocking clan affiliations, etc., is verboten. The realization after the 40s was not that this clan domination of parasitical industries for clan benefit was the problem, the problem was that the clan could be identified. The solution is to utterly FORBID anyone's pointing out the monoethnicity of the levers.

there is a damn lot to what you say but it is less and less true because of:

1. the increasing secularization and loosening of ties to israel (and here i mean its policies under leaders like begin, sharon, netanyahu but not rabin - see what he got) by younger jews and even older ones as the contradictions become more obvious. and

2. the equally important capture of the non-jewish, in many cases virulently christianist, policy makers, especially in the u.s., by the zionist/likud camp.

imo it also impedes the persuasiveness of the argument to lump all jews together. puts off many jews and non jews who might buy the argument otherwise. and do you mean that film is a "parasitical" industry? that seems unfortunate language and an odd conclusion. is food processing parasitical on agriculture? and didn't the nazis (sorry godwin) infamously call the jews parasites?

helen thomas was treated shamefully and the u.s. media is damned for their heinous servility to the israel lobby, etc.

obviously you haven't noticed the heightened awareness in a good number of US Citizens, have you? You can thank Ron Paul (mainly, his most recent campaign) for that. I know he brought me into this circle.

after obama's change you can believe in i have a harder time believing.

however he certainly has a much longer, more consistent record than b.o. and a far, far more detailed policy prescription. also, like one's spouse, he's here. like woody allen, he showed up. he has gotten the top vote at the conservative conference recently and he has a little bully pulpit in the house.

i am more interested in what he would do as president than in any other candidate so far, including nader and kucinich, probably because he looks like he could conceivably get elected if nominated. although i liked ike and goldwater -- i was eight and fifteen -- i have never voted for a republican president [libertarian 1980]. i would vote for paul.

There is no political solutionTo our troubled evolutionHave no faith in constitutionThere is no bloody revolution

We are spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material world

Our so-called leaders speakWith words they try to jail youThe subjugate the meekBut it's the rhetoric of failureWe are spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material world

Where does the answer lie?Living from day to dayIf it's something we can't buyThere must be another way

We are spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material worldAre spirits in the material world

An indication that you are just another sheep, and must be led....sunshine. Easy to criticize isn't it? I don't see you protesting on the Washington Mall in the middle of the week, or generally withdrawing consent from the looters.

Patience grasshopper. How does that saying go on starting revolutions? Sling your rifle over you shoulder, and step outside. If you see than nobody else has done the same, then it is not time. A solo revolution is just another word for suicide.

What makes you believe my residence is in the 50 states or DC? Is it because I am writing in English?

Yesterday I went to a farmer's market and found some Xanthosomanigrium tubers, with vibrant magenta colored buds, evidently grown in a place sheltered from chemtrails. I took two, one in each hand, for my seed vault.

He's not going to do anything of the sort. He's the establishment sanctioned anti-hero.

People need to stop looking at any person to do what they want done so badly.

If you have money in the bank, job in the FIRE, trade stocks and bonds and all of those other things, you are merely continuing to pay and play with and into the very system you so fervently want destroyed, with nary an idea of what might come after except vague pablums like liberty, fraternity, barter etc.

The implosion of the FED will be a perfectly controlled event and you might find, to your shock and awe, that the very people you thought would "save" you might be some of the worst oppressors.

It's all with-in people. All with-in. No Ron Paul, no tea party, no other.

Indeed!!!!!! I have been saying this for a while. Stop trading with these crooks and making them richer and richer. Buy bonds, let them sit until they mature, even if you roll over 28 day bills every month, that is fine. Stop paying these scumbags commission and they will be the ones on the unemployment lines and Wall Street will kill itself, and the FED in the process. When you buy their ETF's and SPY's and whatever other scam they dream up, you are only contributing to the problem.

If you don't like T bills or notes, then put your money in your local community bank or credit union. That simple.

Until people walk away from the scam and scum that is Wall St. they will keep bleeding the people. This includes stop trading Forex. If you have a 401k that you have to send money to automatically, then put it all in a fixed income fund, not a stock fund.

If you wanna really see what effect people can have, then call for a Wall Street boycott for a month. Set the date and time, and get people to stop playing the casino. I guarantee you it won't take a month to send these scumbags to the poorhouse with a good solid joint effort across America.

He's not going to do anything of the sort. He's the establishment sanctioned anti-hero.

He's just being realistic. You people will twist anything just to get to where you want to.

He did not say he does not want to (he wrote a book called "End the Fed", that should give you a clue), he is saying that he does not expect he will be able to, which honestly is the reality. I dont think Ron Paul has the power or the support right now to end the Fed and he knows it.

That is exactly my point. Paul doesn't have the power to do it by himself. Just as our President basically has no power. It all lies in the Congress and those idiots don't have a clue to begin with, and many on the take, so don't expect any of them to help him.

The way the American people can help him is stop playing on Wall Street.

States do have the legal power to secede if they choose.

Justifications for secession

Some theories of secession emphasize a general right of secession for any reason (“Choice Theory") while others emphasize that secession should be considered only to rectify grave injustices (“Just Cause Theory”).[6] Some theories do both. A list of justifications may be presented supporting the right to secede, as described by Allen Buchanan, Robert McGee, Anthony Birch,[7]Walter Williams,[8]Jane Jacobs,[9] Frances Kendall and Leon Louw,[10] Leopold Kohr,[11]Kirkpatrick Sale,[12] and various authors in David Gordon’s “Secession, State and Liberty,” includes:

United StatesPresidentJames Buchanan, Fourth Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union December 3, 1860: "The fact is that our Union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens shed in civil war. If it can not live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress possesses many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force."

i didn't read your post past our president has no power, it all lies in congress.

i direct your gaze to the late, unlamented w. bush administration with particular attention to the last two years when that brave party of the working class, the democrats, controlled congress (the laws and pursestrings), and stopped his wars in their tracks, rolled back his tax cuts for the rich, forced real transparency on financial regulation, stopped the bail out the banks/socialism for the rich, restored civil liberties/repealed the patriot act... no, wait...

Exactly, a seamless transition of power and policy from one "party" to the other. Two wings of the same party, the Oligarch party. Not much chance of reform I'm afraid. Hunkering down for collapse and removing consent.

Chaos. People become even more scared than they already are. Some have gold most don't. They don't understand "backed" dollars and are afraid they won't be able to survive because they don't have gold. They start looking for guidance outside of the mainstream political parties. TPTB rush in a good looking white candidate who promises to end all the chaos. He imposes martial law due to another 9/11 event, he says it is only a temporary measure designed to protect your children. The people don't like martial law but they also don't like the chaos so they accept it. America has its first out of the closet dictator.

Don't tell me I'm wrong before you think about it. Sure, most people on this thread are of a higher intelligence than most of the sheeple and can understand a gold standard. Can your average TV watching mind numbed American understand it? I don't think so. Chaos ensues.

your about right there. As I have written here before, Americans need to study Europe 1933-1934 and what America did and thought in relation to what was happening.

One must remember that a little as 20 years ago Americans still got their "news" from real independent media companies who HAD the public trust and truth reported. Now we put them in jail, or we shame them into oblivian. All media now is dictated opinion, and repeated opinion. Newspapers are fish wrappers, TV to keep the babies occupied, and to tell you how white your president should be. Soon, the Internet will be as controlled as it is in China, and what you read will be logged into and sifted at one of those two 10 by 10 mile square data centers in Texas (how convenient).

Yes, indeed, martial law is coming to a neighborhood near you...it is like the smell of BBQ...it is in the air whether we like it or not. I won't be about gold, it will be about food and shelter.

[Lets say Paul gets what he wants, he ends the fed. What next?]---Blankman

Thanks for your post, Blankman.

I'm not too concerned about what one congressional committee chairman "wants." My concern is what our founding Fathers wanted. There's no shortage of information to this regard. Our founders would find the Fed a wretched unconstitutional abomination. Ron Paul agrees.

Yes, I agree with you that chaos may ensue. Prepare for that. And, history warns us a strong-man dictator will likely emerge with promises of hope.

A dictator in the U.S.? But, not for long. Not on my watch. (I have a lot of friends on my watch.)

Blankman, I actually agree with you. Maybe you misunderstood my drift. I said the same thing, that no-one is ready for end the fed, it's mostly talk. The Fed will end when it's time for the fed to end and TPTB have an alternative in mind.

yes.....well, everyone can see what the high ideals and awesome promisses did to the current leader.

I am 90% in Pauls camp, but he has been beating this drum for, what, 10 years and where are changes? Look what happened to his brother in Arms...Alan Grayson. And where was Paul during Grayson's campaign. Grayson was a 'get rid of at all costs' target and Paul stood by and did nothing, said nothing. So who will stand by Paul when his personal attack time comes??? ZH bloggers...please, give me a break. I'd like to see 1% of you get off your cushions and in the streets.

The pen is mighter than the sword you say? Great who reads anymore?

The backbone of America is broken, and all our "enemies" we have conjured up from foreign lands didn't do it...we did it to ourselves, and that is why NO ONE has ANY answers now.

I STRONGLY urge all of you to read the book by David and Julie Eisenhower on General and President Eisenhower. An eye opener, an eye opener for what makes a hero and a leader. Then ask yourself if Ron Paul is such a man...maybe, maybe not.

Do anyone of you REALLLLLLLY believe that the ruling oligary would let you hold on to all that gold you have bought? Ask WW11 Germany how that got the gold, they ripped it right out of your teeth..... dead or alive.

"a century-long scheme to transfer countless ounces (no pun intended) of tangible wealth to the ruling oligarchy in exchange for worthless and infinitely dilutable linen." If they had used beaded necklaces, we would have caught on sooner.

The US & other countries could easily return to a gold standard but not one run by government. Governments are already 'underwriting' a gold loan of unpredented proportions, both for itself & 'private' financial institutions. If they had to redeem gold at a fixed price the vaults would be empty in like, a fraction of a second.

No, the only hope is that government will voluntarily give up its money power...

My take on it (FREEGOLD) is basically taking M1 or M3 and dividing by Gold reserves. Start with that price for Gold (i.e FRN now gold backed) but the price of the gold is not fixed... it floats on market so if more notes printed each note buys less gold/silver etc... Currency id fully covertible and people actually store savings in metal bullion, coverting to FRN's or other competing currencies as required. Sounds like a feasible exit strategy for them to me and will stop further inflation induced erosion of purchasing power via money printing.... (phew saved last 3%) Of course those who own physical at point of conversion will clean up big time :-) Effectively Gold becomes the official world currency with all cureencies linked at different rates depending on their issuers' gold reserves.

Well, here in Oz, we have approx 2.5 million ounces of gold reseves & M3 stands at about 1.2 trillion. You can have your gold backed freegold but it will be worthless. These M's, being measures of system credit are undefinable in an objective sense anyhow. I don't see this freegold working.

Does that work out at 480,000? ... (ran out of digits on my calculator... too many zeros) I believe Jim Rickards (advocating something similar for US) puts the conversion at $55,000 in US if using the M3, that would mean AUD would be equivalent to approx $8.70 US for example. Lot of currencies would be destroyed if their CB didn't have alot of gold (they might just use the new recapitalised USD instead???) but at the end of the day it will be every man for himself and if this put US back on top of heap with the most liquid (or only) gold backed currency it might just be the lesser of evils for them??

end the "war on terrorism" and all the foreign wars, close the military bases, reduce armaments (but not to a degree that would actually harm u.s. security in the least. imo it would be improved immeasurably).

fair treatment of the palestinians and an end to israel favoritism.

end the war on drugs.

restore civil liberties, repeal most of the patriot act.

i don't agree with all of it (little financial/corporate regulation, make abortion more difficult to obtain) but it is a fully developed policy arsenal.

Matt Taibbi embarrassed GS. Tyler's already tackled the Fed. They've been exposed. All that's needed is a state official to finish the job. We are entering the next (and hopefully) final phase. Godspeed Ron Paul.

Ron Paul will run, but I do hope that his son, Rand, is early into the picture, because he is the firebrand we need. As I said a few months ago, a Ron Paul - Rand Paul presidential ticket could be a winner.

It's about the only hope we have, because when you look at the 2012 ticket, it's Obama vs. take your pick, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney or Ron Paul, though there may be some others willing to stick their noses in there. When the primaries get rolling, Ron Paul will look like the most viable candidate, and, with his son at his side, raising the fever of the debate, the Hope and Changers won't stand a chance.

Ron runs this time and might see a somewhat narrow field for candidates. The GOP wold muster every resource to stop him. He is after all just as dangerous to the GOP as he is to the DNC and the Fed if he got elected.

Andrew Jackson did have a plan. There was a land bubble because of the Second Bank of the United States credit expansion, and when the credit expansion ended the bubble bursts, creating a correction that lasted year and a half. Then growth again. It was unavoidable. Andrew Jackson plan worked perfectly.

don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. however any theodore roosevelts in the wings please, please step forward. our "agent of change" turned out to be an agent provocateur and offered us only chump change (all we apparently deserved as we...).

It's a bizarre feeling to watch the right man and the right job align in this very public way. Paul's Fed hearings will take him to the next level as a prez candidate and the general public's sense that it's about the economy, stupid, may make him a front runner nationally. I am not a Paulista but would back him fully on the hope of getting rid of the Central Bank, it's stable of Princeton economists, the upstream that profits from every Fed move, and the occasional multi-billion $ bailout of UBS, Deutsche, and the American rogue's gallery.

No we couldn't. As originally conceived, central banks, including the Fed, would redeem their banknotes in gold. These banknotes were simply the more marketable form of the bill of exchange between (mostly) wholesaler & retailer. That is, they would represent actual goods at the point of sale to consumers. The central bank would discount these bills of exchange and the banknote would circulate instead of the bill.

The problem is when the government has a say in the matter, it will inevitably expect the central bank to monetise its debt. Hey, just a little bit of monetisation won't hurt will it? Then when the central bank is made insolvent, so what, we can just suspend redeemability and what the fuck are you going to do about it anyway private citizen?

What we really need is a private banking, where government bonds must compete with private debt for the gold of the saver.

I'd offer one correction to the above, which you may or may not agree with - governments do not have to sell debt. They can simply issue currency - without interest and without debt. See Lincoln's Greenback and Kennedy's silver certificate. Yes, there are issues (debasement, printing) but the bond auctions and interest are a gift to the banksters. Note that both of these presidents were assassinated.

Competing currencies, including some PM-backed. Government issued fiat for government taxes. No government bond auctions and subsidies to the banksters. A start...

This would be a disaster. Everytime it has been tried there has been hyperinflation.

Check the french assignats or the Lincoln greenbacks you mention. The greenbacks were a disaster that only survieved because the government stop printing them, but hyperinflated while the government was printing them. How someone can say that the greenbacks were something above a complete scam is beyond me.

No. The Rebels followed the same playbook England did during the revolution by mass production of counterfeit notes.Hyperinflation occurred for that reason. It has worked until mass counterfeiting OR governments acting like governments.

I figured I would reply with comparison to naked short selling terms because that is the Rosetta Stone around here :)

All paper/ bonds/common stock that can be easily counterfeited suffers this.

step 1. Counterfeit pieces of paper and stuff the economy. Exactly what happens digitally in naked short selling.

step 2. Watch pieces of paper become worthless.Exactly what happens in naked short selling.

step 3. Purchase "real" paper at artificial discount and destroy issuer of the piece of paper by redeeming.Exactly what happens in naked short selling.

step 4. Profit.

As for an example of this system actually working, you may want to look up the origin of stock, how two pieces of wood had to match perfectly (no counterfeiting).

B: the government's controle of the printing press would encourage government spending and intervention in the economy.

C: The government printing money would constitute a massive intervention in the economy since, just like now, the money's use as a medium of exchange would not arise naturally from the markets but rather through the government's enforcing (key part of that word is FORCING) its use.

No, I don't agree with it Traderjoe. This idea of a 'debt free' currency is an oxymoron.

As I described above, in theory the banknotes of a central bank should be the more marketable form, or if you like, more readily accepted, form of the bill of exchange. It is a form of credit & must be redeemed at maturation. Since you cannot redeem your modern day banknote, it is effectively perpetual debt. If you've accepted & held dollars all your life you've effectively offered the government a perpetual loan, whether you've agreed to it or not.

Lincoln's greenback was certainly not debt free, it was an irredeemable banknote, no different to the modern day Federal Reserve Note. Nor was Kennedy's silver certificate, which to be a 'silver certificate' must have been a promise to redeem in silver, otherwise, how can it possibly be a silver certificate?

What you call "the gold standard" are a bunch of different systems, all somehow related to gold, but very different. The Fed pretended to care for the gold standard for decades while creating bubbles, would you call that a gold standard or would you say its gold fault? During the XIX century the USA had a bunch of different monetary systems, most of them based on gold, some good, some bad, but extremely different.

Saying its all the same "gold standard" and that its at fault makes no sense.

"We still had crooks and banks panics when we were on the gold standard.

We could have a functioning economy with the Fed and a fiat currency - all it takes is honesty and no falling into fraud to satisfy greed."

You seem to miss the simple little fact that the FED was created to HIDE the crooks and their scams. It allows system to lend out money to a degree unimaginable when the banks were running their little scams independently of each other and with no "lender of last resort," consolidating all those little scams into a ginormous CON.

You see, that nice "lender of last resort" whips dollar bills out of its butt to bailout the banks when they're undone by their little scams, on a daily basis via the little "discount window," and once in a while in more spectacular public displays like QE or an alphabet soup of "programs".

If the FED didn't exist, ah yes, there would've been those annoying little bank runs, which would destroy the offending banks that got just a little too greedy. No, No. We can't have that, can we? Nobody wants a system that keeps itself honest.

The enemy of the people is reserve banking. End that and you end the scam and the FED.

BTW, they run nice little reserve banking scam with gold as well. Just go ask the nice central banks and bullion vaults if you can see and count up their stash. We will soon find out how big that scam is.

The future of money is electronic. eMoney will be 'relatively valued', if the majority of people want the relative measure to be a precious metal, then so be it.

Money (or more accurately, a value storage mechanism) is essential to trade, as barter is ridiculously inefficient.

One tribe of Pacific Islanders used large coral stones as 'value stores'. Most of the stones were too big to move, so who owned which stone was kept in people's memories. Once, upon transporting a 1 tonne stone from one island to another, the transport boat capsized and the stone sunk to the bottom of the ocean, but because ownership was in people's memories, the stone was still used as money, even though it was resting on the sea floor.

When the French arrived, they painted all the stones black, thus destroying the currency system of the islanders (and replacing it with something the islanders were previously not interested in, gold).

My point (and I do have one), is that money (as opposed to barter), is an AGREEMENT. When the Central Bank overprints money, they are in violation of the social contract, in which we all agree to pretend that printed cotton has value, so we can trade with each other.

With eMoney, the value of money will be set by the market using offers and bids for goods and services sold. Everyone will get some starting 'money', but will then need to trade to obtain more.

It must be unique, it must come from the Earth, it must be unreproducible.

Sorry to be rude, but that is an idiotic requirement for currency. Such a requirement would have 1/3 of the population mining the currency, hardly a productive use of resources.

You could make a grain basket the currency (some kind of derivative of soy,wheat,rice and maize), but that would introduce 'interesting' volatility and arbitrage, both of which are taken advantage of by the bankers and traders you so despise.

As to who controls the digits, each person controls their own digits, through cryptography.

Ron Paul " Would end the Fed" , Not will end the Fed. Sorry Mr Paul. These are nothing but Howard Beale type rants that are nothing but rants. Howard Beale met his match when Arthur Jensen tore him a new Asshole. I support you Ron Paul and believe you are a true American. Dont let the Arthur Jensens of the world defeat you

He is doing great. But he needs support from the Congress to get approval to audit the Fed. The congress is sold out to the Big banks , he will not get support. This will be a cat and mouse game for two years until the elections. Nothing can be done unless full support of congress and it can only happen if there is a second deep crisis.

so end game is what ? that all FEDERAL RESERVE NOTES are declared worthless ? invalid ? what happens to those people who's nice grandma left them a trust fund filled with worthless money ? ............ i'm asking ........... my poor children, their grandma left a fortunate to a BANK in trust for her grandchildren when they reach 30 years old ......... which is about 5-10 years from right now !!! ......... & here I thought my rich kids would help their poor old Mom who can't find any decent work the past few years.

First, no one really knows the endgame. What is the trust invested in? Bonds, stocks, cash, gold? Do you have any discretion over the investments or is it just under the control of the bank? Can you replace the trustee and the bank?

I do believe the FRN is toast over the next 5 years. Dunno how or when, but there is no way we will pay our debts.

Tough to discuss what to do about the trust. It depends upon your own beliefs, what you would want do about it, what your kids would want to do about it, the terms of the trust, and your relationship to the bank in charge of the trust...

Not necessarily. The government can, and should, issue currency (not money, money is to store value, currency is to trade) that competes with the FRNs. Let the market decide the relative value of either. If the Fed starts loaning trillions to foreign banks and to member banks, they dilute the currency and, based on Goodwin's law, people would prefer treasury notes vs. FRNs. Eventually the FRNs would become worthless from over issuance and the vox populi would demand Treasury notes. Currency competition would act as a control from over issuance. If the Treasury issues too many notes, the FRNs would become more valuable and vice versa. You could have the Treasury notes issued as silver certificates were a dollar is an ounce of silver (per US Coin Act) and the FRNs would openly trade at 30:1 or so. You would see prices listed in both currencies (similar to the transition period in Germany when they first adopted the Euro).

No, the way it should work, and might work if RonPaul is elected as president, is this.

Take the 8000 tons of gold that belongs to the USA. Divide that by the quantity of dollars in individual savings and checking accounts to arrive at a one-time conversion rate between gold and federal reserve notes. The government coins all its gold and exchanges it for all individual savings and checking dollars... and from then on everyone spends gold coins.

All fiat, fake, fraud, fiction, fantasy, fractional-reserve toilet paper FederalReserveNoteComputerBits in everyone elses hands become worthless, the USA defaults on its debts (which were unconsitutional as the FederalReserveNotes they were denominated in), and the USA never again borrows to fund government.

I haven’t been a Ron Paul fan but he is at least talking the talk and has been for a while. At this point, with the high irritation talk against the present regime, Paul appears to be as good a reason as any to put down the pitch fork and get out the wallet and get involved.

If there is a movement for change as many here say they want, is there a better choice than Paul? Is he doable? He sure as hell wasn’t last time. What say you?

Ron Paul might have been "doable" last time if the timing had been slightly different. If you recall, he kept saying how the USSA was on the verge of a financial crisis, and all the other candidates laughed and sneered at him.

Not long after they predators-that-be kicked RonPaul out of the debates and effectively eliminated his chances to continue, the financial system did indeed crash... big time.

If timing was slightly different, he might have won.

He has a much better chance this time around. Just playing his comments in the last presidential debates has almost an identical feel as the various "PeterShiff was right" videos on youtube.

It is the time to bring down the entire corrupt system, i.e., Wall-Street, the mainstream media, and corporate America. It is a time for a 2nd American revolution. Marginal changes will not do it. Unfortunately, American people are not ready for real changes.